27 Years Ago: Nikki Sixx Declared Dead

From a career standpoint, Motley Crue has had nine lives. However, we’d estimate that bassist/co-founder Nikki Sixx alone has eaten up at least half of those. Of course, none of his (near-)death experiences have been as infamous as the one on December 23, 1987. After a night of drug-fueled partying with pals (including Guns n’ Roses members Slash and Steven Adler and Ratt’s Robbin Crosby), Sixx was injected with one last syringe of heroin — and promptly passed out cold.

Unfortunately, this overdose wasn’t like the others; he had turned blue, and couldn’t be roused. In Sixx’s book, ‘The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star,’ a recent U.S. transplant named Sally McLaughlin recalls frantically giving the rocker mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, while her then-boyfriend Slash destroyed a hotel bathroom around them.

“I tried to sit up to figure out what was going on. I thought it would be hard to lift my body. But to my surprise, I shot upright, as if I weighed nothing. Then it felt as if something very gentle was grabbing my head and pulling me upward. Above me, everything was bright white.

I looked down and realized I had left my body. Nikki Sixx—or the filthy, tattooed container that had once held him—was lying covered face-to-toe with a sheet on a gurney being pushed by medics into an ambulance.”

Amid this pandemonium, word leaked to the radio and other members of the band that Sixx had died. In ‘The Heroin Diaries,’ Vince Neil recalled being devastated: “Maybe deep down I knew it was going to happen one day, but it still tore me to pieces because I loved Nikki — even though he was an arrogant selfish s–. I cried. And I never used to cry then.”

But then — miracle of miracles — Sixx eventually woke up just a few hours later. True to form, he was not thrilled to be in the hospital, and left it in style.

In his own ‘Heroin Diaries’ words: “There was a cop asking me questions, so I told him to go f– himself. I ripped out my tubes and staggered in just my leather pants into the parking lot, where two teenage girls were sitting crying around a candle. They had heard on the radio that I was dead and looked kind of surprised to see me.”

The teenagers gave Sixx a jacket, a lecture about quitting drugs — and a ride home, in their Mazda.

Welcome back to US 103 Ultimate VIP Club

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on .
To keep your personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you.
To activate your account, please confirm your password.
When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

*Please note that your prizes and activities will not be shared between programs within our VIP network.

Welcome back to US 103 Ultimate VIP Club

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing VIP profile. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://us103.com using your original account information.